In Lieu of Fire
by AoiHyou
Summary: [KH, minor yaoi] Love is not the same for everyone. It does not have to end in passion.


Title: In Lieu of Fire  
Author: AoiHyou  
Rating: PG-PG13... I suppose  
Warnings: Pretty minor yaoi. Some spoilers.  
Disclaimer: The characters and original plot/series do not belong to me. The plot for this story, however, does. Ultimately, I own nothing.  
Author's Notes: I am rusty on this fandom, rusty in writing... so if that scares you... run away, quickly. This fic is really quite pointless. It really, really is. I don't even know why it exists. It just sort of came out because I thought someone that lived thousands of years would be more nonchalant than I've described him in the past.

Summary: Love is not the same for everyone. It does not have to end in passion. KH yaoi.

-+-

He had abandoned who he was a long time ago. It wasn't that tasteful, anyways, the creature he'd painted himself to be. There was beauty without a doubt—flawless, fluid hair, silver restlessly framing his pale, perfect skin. Being beautiful was the signature of a youko—but that did not mean he had been any better than a thieving oni.

Countless demons had been held by his arms. One had been loved. One had been lost. Other than that one, though, his life had been a monotonous string of existing. Just existing.

His first mother had told him to live with some class, had taught him that stealing was an _art_ and should be treated as such. But youko lived so long; a few hundred years and her words were lost to his keen ears.

So—despite what others said about human lives being dull, how they were certain he would bore of such a quaint existence where he had once been a notorious thief... despite that all, he found himself believing the contrary.

There was a novelty to mortality. There was excitement, even in days spent just doing schoolwork, in the fact that he had a deadline. As a youko he had pursued his own end, had run headfirst into raids, thrown his life on the line just to find a cheap (or, for his victims, expensive) rush. As a youko he had lived hazardously so that he _could_ feel like he was _living_—a feeling that only came with knowing he could die.

But, walking past the grave stones every day to the train station, he saw birth and death dates were so close together. Just forty years. Just eighty years. And all of these deaths were natural. The first time he had noticed this, he'd spent a few hours walking around the graves, mystified. Dying younger than two hundred, without some sort of foul play involved? It'd been inexplicable to him.

Youko Kurama had entered a world where women bashfully lied about their ages by saying they were younger than they looked. It was a flip from the society he had been accustomed to, where demons often boasted of their long lives, of how many wars they had seen and lived through...

So to him, being Shuuichi was enthralling. Where human children in the same class as him were learning, he was _re_learning. He had to systematically separate what had been with what was. Youko, aside from being beautiful, were intelligent. Mind games were just as thrilling as a dash through the forest.

It was a fun game, playing the yuutousei, the top student, the popular boy. In some ways it was an extension of his old game, seeing how many notches he could get on his 'bedside', except now it was less about sex and more about 'merit'. It was just amusing, really, that a youko was considered the most trustworthy student of his year.

It was frequently the case that humans wasted away their lives on one obsession. Some with books, some with certain fantasies, jobs... it was easy to get wrapped up in something otherwise insignificant. Kurama had thought himself immune.

He was wrong.

-+-

He'd stared down a lot of people, a lot of things, in his life. Fiery eyes, cool eyes, hateful eyes, lustful eyes, any other type his mind could come up with. But the little firedemon was rather persistent. If he'd still been a youko, he'd have considered him dull, considered him a fool for hanging around a legendary thief like a spitfire pest.

_I have a proposition for you. You know you aren't satisfied with this life..._

His big almond eyes were always flickering with some sort of agitation. Kurama didn't care what genetics said; he did not believe that Hiei had received any of the koorime traits. He was almost positive that they'd all been funneled to Yukina.

His second mother never taught him concepts like his first. She always taught him little things. How to hold chopsticks gracefully, how to treat elders, how to treat kouhai—those kind of things that made her somehow closer to him. It was a little unnerving at first, because Kurama had viewed her through a youko's eyes. He'd tried to compare her to his first mother, and it had, in a way, frightened him.

But that day, with her hands bleeding, her voice so worried, Shiori had proved to be another _difference_. To this day, it still perplexed him on a level, but by the time the youko in him realized it—he was calling her 'Kaasan' in his head, not just with his lips.

_I have a proposition for you... I have a plan, but I need... _

With Hiei, it was never: _I need your help._ It was:

_...your skills in thieving. I already have a distraction, and the speed._

He'd refused for long enough that it became rather annoying. Long enough for his mother's health to digress.

Long enough for him to finally say:

_Alright._

And change his life forever.

Again.

-+-

Being caught by a human had been another surprise. Though, really, he'd given himself up more than anything.

It had been less that Yuusuke had 'caught' him for Koenma that had surprised him... it was that Shiori had 'caught' him so thoroughly that he'd felt willing to do anything for her.

Kurama wasn't sure he'd ever felt like that before.

Shuuichi accepted it, as well as the punishment.

He remembered the way that the little fire demon had looked at him, defiance bright in his eyes, hatred etched in his young face.

The infuriated expression he'd given when Kurama had just smiled at him and accepted Koenma's terms.

Kurama was sure he hadn't loved him then.

He didn't know exactly when that changed, despite the time he'd known the demon being so short in the grand scheme of things. One would think he could look back on those few years and pinpoint the exact moment—or at least the day—yet he'd spent more than a few nights with the window open, letting the winds carry his thoughts, and found not a single date.

-+-

It was perhaps the remnants of the youko that made him accept things so easily. All of it—Yuusuke's training, Yomi, the Makai tournaments... were of course pressing when they'd been of the present, yet just after they were passed... he found himself unconcerned with them. Certainly he thought back on the events, was intelligent enough to see the benefits of retrospection... but Shiori was safe. He could play out his life as her 'son', make it up to her for stealing the real Shuuichi for her. It was all that mattered.

It was mostly all that mattered.

Yet the youko in him could not help him accept things it was not accustomed to. He could shrug the battles off, could make Makai a memory to himself once again—yet the youko in him did not know how to deal with rejection.

Especially when it wasn't outright rejection. He did not know what to do with the hopeless, subtle rejection.

Shuuichi picked out flowers for Hiei, winked at the fire demon and told him that any girl would love the bouquet. Shuuichi had dressed Hiei up and sent him on his way to Mukuro.

Yet it was both Shuuichi and the youko in him that were at a loss as to—to how to comprehend that. How to deal with it, to understand it, accept it, and let it pass. It was an infectious, nagging thing on his mind.

So the natural thing to do was not to tell him. To block the thought from the fiery koorime so adamantly that he could not break in with his Jagan, even if he tried.

The most effective defense was a smile. The same smile that had infuriated the demon so many times in the past.

Just a light pull of his lips upward, his eyes glittering a secretive emerald, yet silent in their audacity of his secret.

Every time he did this, every time he replied to Hiei's annoyed probes of:

_What?_

_Hn._

The 'Hn' that could translate to: What are you hiding? What the hell is wrong with you? Why are you looking at me like that? And so many other far-too-long deciphered meanings.

Every time he replied with that small smile, Kurama recalled Hiei's slightly confused voice saying:

_But he is male._

He remembered Yuusuke teasing him for his long hair, that he looked like a female, that there were loads of Shuuichi fan girls... and fan _boys_.

And Hiei, eyebrows a bit askew, arms crossed, saying:

_But he is male._

They'd all laughed. Kuwabara had declared the shrimp an idiot, yet found himself incapable of explaining the male-male attraction, as he was rather... well, incapable in anything having to do with romance, much less taboo romance.

They'd all laughed and Kurama just remembered thinking:

_He is so young._

And Shuuichi remembered thinking:

_Damn._

-+-

Bribery was something he was accustomed to. Stealing treasures meant there were treasures to be used. To pay for food, for drink, for luxury... and for services. Now, though, he didn't have treasures like he used to.

Now it was sweet snow.

Hiei was shoveling chocolate chip ice cream into his mouth like some errant child, and Shuuichi smiled.

"Is this what you came to visit me for?"

"...hn."

Yuusuke said that he could be scary sometimes. That something in him seemed to click, or snap, and he would just do whatever had been on his mind.

Kurama crossed the room, his long fingers easily pulling Hiei's chin up to force the startled demon to look at him. Hiei started to react, and the redhead could feel the smaller body tensing up to shove him away or flit out the window. It was more reaction than action. Kurama pushed the little demon back so that he had him pinned against the wall, holding him there by his throat.

A part of him wanted to laugh. A part of him wanted to let go and apologize. Another part, which won out, just wanted to smile.

"You should never put your guard down, you know."

Hiei started to respond, angry words obviously on his tongue, but Kurama just smiled again and tightened the grasp against his Adam's apple, garbling his speech.

"Just because I'm a human now doesn't mean I couldn't kill you."

Hiei's pupils shifted in a way that made him feel rather warm inside.

"Just because we're friends doesn't mean I wouldn't betray you."

There was a twitch in his features that the youko delighted in.

"Just because I'm male, Hiei..." he didn't kiss him softly in the least. He'd never, in all honestly, been a gentle youko. Kurama nipped at the demon's bottom lip, "...why haven't you pushed me away yet, little demon?" He could have escaped by now.

Easily.

He made it even easier by closing his eyes, tilting his head suddenly to possess the thin, often scowling lips.

Then it all became euphorically clear.

Kurama knew how to handle it, how to accept it, how to let it pass.

Hiei looked at him with eyes that wanted.

The youko was accustomed to that want.

And in that moment, the enigmatic, special fire demon became but another notch in his record.

Kurama's grasp loosened, then dropped, and he just smiled as he stepped back.

"Would you like to take some back to Mukuro?"

The solution was simple. The youko and the human had grappled with the question, had wondered how to handle this love—romantic love, as opposed to the familiar devotion he had for Shiori. The youko offered a simple solution to the human, who always accepted his proposals.

Simply:

Love was not real. It was an infatuation. It was a yearning for the exotic. It was a want for what could not be had.

And how could the human protest this?

Humans always fell out of 'love', 'love' faded over the years, and those that died in 'love' had simply not lived long enough to arrive at the truth.

Hiei blinked, bewildered.

Kurama just smiled.


End file.
